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I Sorta Miss The Flops And Epic Fails

Back in the day, all sorts of broken games made their way to store shelves. Screwed up translation was common, for instance; where do you think "All your base are belong to us?" came from, anyway?

During the infancy period of this industry, it really wasn't hard to find games that should never have made it through QA testing...and that was probably because many times, there was no such thing as QA. But even up through last generation, we'd occasionally get the hotly anticipated title that just flopped big time, leading to months - and even years - of good ol' mocking laughter. Oh, make no mistake, I'm a very optimistic person in general and I hate to see games fail. It's quite depressing.

But now it's almost...I don't know, boring, I guess. It's almost inevitable that most any game on your "most anticipated" list will end up being great. It's an absolutely absurd thing to complain about and in fact, someone should really take notice of this phenomenon, 'cuz it doesn't happen in other entertainment venues. I mean, there's basically no chance Assassin's Creed III will flop. There's basically no chance Bioshock Infinite will be disappointing. There's basically no chance that you'll play God of War: Ascension and go, "damn, I'm surprised, this sucks."

In fact, even games that you may have been on the fence about, that weren't guaranteed hits, are coming up big. Look at this past week; both Darksiders II and Sleeping Dogs turned out great. Besides Duke Nukem Forever (which could very well be the most epic fail of all time) and Haze, I'm not sure I can put my finger on many colossally disappointing titles. Sure, we've seen games that suck but 95% of the time, we all expected them to suck. If we expect them to be fantastic, they most often are.

That's really pretty amazing when you stop to think about it; I can't think of a game that totally betrayed me this generation. I was even iffy on Haze so I wasn't completely shocked when it blew. It's actually a lot easier to find diamonds in the rough, titles that didn't get a ton of attention but were still really good. Who thinks The Last Of Us will flop? Seriously? Crysis 3? Right. Dead Space 3? I'm guessing not. You can always tick off hardcore fans but in terms of quality, it's just so rare to see out-and-out flops from hotly anticipated projects.

It's awesome but still, I kinda miss the floppity flop flops. They could be amusing. By the way, anybody who complains about the state of video game quality today needs a sock to the head, or they need to go back in time and stand in front of the game rental shelf at Blockbuster. Maybe in the late 80s or early 90s. Good luck with that.

Oh man...KZ3 was definitely a disappointment. I loved KZ2, played the MP like crazy and loved the SP. KZ3 wasn't bad, but it juat felt so different in all regards and as a result, it is the only game I sold back to gamestop...smh

Everyone has there preference...and I preferred KZ2 to KZ3 mp. I really hated the close quarter map set up compared to KZ2 more strategic wider map lay out. Personal preference....and that's why I'm a big fan of BF3!Last edited by FM23 on 8/18/2012 12:19:24 PM

That assured quality of franchise games these days is often the reason I put them off. Don't get me wrong Bioshock Infinite is day 1, but GTA V can basically sit on the shelf until it's el cheapo. I get excited about new stuff like Dishonored and Remember Me, or the new direction for DMC.

There's a certain stagnation in top quality games, which is why I found a lot to enjoy in dark horses like WET, Dark Void, Saboteur, Two Worlds II, and Condemned 2. You gotta get your hands dirty. There was a time when 95% of games were unplayable.

I loved most of those dark horses you mention. I haven't played my Two Worlds II yet and Wet I need to pick up again and actually play it. Was to overloaded when I had it before. Wish I never got rid of it.

Dark Void had it's flaws but I really enjoyed the story. Saboteur was a great and fun game with a cool story overlooked by to many. I will say I loved the first Condemned more but 2 was almost as good and pretty crazy.

**SPOILER BEGIN**Not sure if you played the first Condemned World but I now one of the scariest parts in the game was when you go into the mall and there are all the mannequins. When you first see them and it feels like they're all staring at you. I remember when I saw the first one move out of the corner of my eye. Freaked me the hell out.**SPOILER END**

I probably didn't need the spoiler parts since the game is so old but I thought I would be nice.

I am the same in that way. In fact I was playing Dust a few weeks ago and another player on there was kind of trying to get friends to play with. Well he asked me what games I played and I made the mistake of saying it is more like what don't I play, he started naming games and all he was naming were those AAA type titles and I am laughing as I am saying "nope, I haven't played that" or "nope, I don't play those" after a few minutes he even asked if I was one of those indie snobs. I laughed and told him my name he looked it up and said wow, ok, you play games but we don't have a single game in common, and I replied that is what I told you ingame.

The majority of the highly anticipated titles this gen are just boring to me and I would rather play games that interest me. I still think though that this gen has had more "broken" games than many of the previous gens, but I am also not using the word "broken" in the same way as previous gens either.

@World: The first Condemned was on the 360. It came out around launch. It's a great game to play.

@Biker: No offense but just wanted to correct you on Condemned. The first one was Criminal Origins and the second one was Bloodshot. No biggie though considering how many games you have. Can't remember them all right. lol

I think when Ninja Gaiden 3 came out some journalists just had a field day going to town and ripping that game a new one. I thought it was unfairly kicked in the nuts while it was down by many, but I don't think the consensus was necessarily off target. I liked the game. PLayed it a ton, actually.

Latest flop I can think of is Postal 3. I mean, I didn't exactly have high hopes for the game, but based on how much fun I had with the crude humor of 2 I never expected the game to suck as bad as it does. It's hard to even watch videos of that train wreck.

One of the reason flops I played was X-Men Destiny. The game was just horrible but I played it all and earned the platinum.

I'll play pretty much anything at least once. There was Azurik on the original Xbox. Talk about garbage. I finished the game though and I will say it had the best credits in any game ever. Had me dying laughing.

Another game that flopped but I thought was amazing was Advent Rising. The game had such an awesome story and it never got finished.

Silent Hill? I haven't even completed Homecoming yet as it was just so awful, people complain at the old gameplay mechanics of horror titles, but I found them far better than the action orientated gameplay of this hunk of crap. Then there graphics, which look worse than Silent Hill 3 from the previous gen. atmos sound will abruptly cut out after cutscenes, it's just an utter mess.

I also found Resistance 3 to be very disappointing, I know it got good reviews but I just found it really lacking in comparision to the previous games. They tried to make us character about an old minor character with his family but I just couldn't connect with him. The story as a whole was flat and we learn't nothing new about the Chimera. Not to mention the Co-op is buggy. For me this lead an AAA series to average.

Then there have just been other games which I cannot stand the direction they have gone in, like Tekken 6 resembling anime or Resident Evil taking action over horror, I can say they're flops I just hate the direction the series have taken.

But when it comes to flops, I think gamers rely on reviews now to avoid the bad experiences. I look at myself of PS3 games and they all easily 7+/10 titles (I tend to get rid of titles if I really cannot stand them like Farcry 2). I know I do, however if a game really interests me with unique features but is not received well I will give it a try. Many gave Nier mediocre reviews, but I regard it as one of the most enjoyable games I have played this gen. But often reviews have put me off games due to low scores, bugs, poor mechanics ect.

So I've heard, mighty tempted by it now, Silent Hill 2 is in my top 10 games of all time. So if I could play it in full HD without any bugs I'd be pleased :D the PS2 version has James leg glitching and vanishing all the time when I put it in my backwards compatible PS3.

But I mention Silent Hill for anything set after The Room, there has just been nothing redeeming about it's downfall at all.. well Shattered Memories is okay, but it is more of an experiment than an actual game.

hell 1 game mass effect 3!if you were to tell me 2 days before ME3 released that it would get the backlash it did, and a massive portion of its fans would LOATHE it i would of personally driven you and not left till i saw you locked in your own mental cell!thats how a surefire hit the game was looking!and how did that turn out?now a massive portion of bioware fans have sworn to never buy another one of their games ever again!

games are just as picking straws as they ever were, its really hard to tell if a games going to end up being really good or a flop!simply because we only see a small portion of a game, and allot of the times things that matter, like story for instance they wont show to avoid spoilers.hell, 70% at least of games this generation that were assured to be sure fire hits ended up sucking!remember how much hype APB had behind it?how did that turn out?remember how much hype too human had behind it?it was called the GOW for the 360!how did that turn out?

we have as much of a guess of how well a games going to do as much we have the ability to pick next weeks lottery numbers!

DMC4, RE5, GOWIII, Dead Rising 2 & GTAIV were flops to you? I'd say some were more disappointing but certainly not flops. Sure RE5 had a change in direction that most didn't take a liking too but it most certainly wasn't a flop. As an action game it was top quality & if it didn't have the Resi Evil label it would have probably been received much better from the masses.

& Mass Effect 3, other than the ending (which has been improved upon now, to help dry the tears of fans with sore arses) what else was actually wrong with the game from a gameplay perspective in your view? Compared to say ME2? Not having a crack at you or trying to mother you or anything, i just find some of your decisions bewildering.

I enjoy opinions & all but some of the games you've listed there, to me anyway, is bordering on absurd! If those are flops in your book, where the **** do you rate commercial turds such as Haze, Lair & Dino Crisis 3?

Out there opinions & no online handle. You mysterious little whippersnapper, you. ;)

besides the pathetic story, the side missions were so simplified, and the relationships you build with the characters was non existent!ME2 was so addicting because you spent so much time helping your crew you REALLY cared for them!ME3 though the opposite is true, so i could not care who burned and who did not.the only part of ME3 that was better than 2 was the big epic set pieces, everything else was a massive step back!

absolutley they were flops, simply because they did not live up to what they were suppose to be!especially GTAIV, it was the first next gen game so everyone was expecting a massive HD open world like san andreas.but so much of that was stripped away!you couldent fly jets, you couldent do outdoor activities, there was no weapon customization, there was no gang wars, it was the most basic simplistic dumbed down game possible!

Wait.... How is LBP 2 and inFamous 2 flops? They were high-caliber, fun and vast improvements on the original. Hell, half the games you list were really good games. Most of the others are medicore or a flop you could see from a mile away

Simply because a game doesn't meet every single one of your bizarre expectations does not mean its a flop.

Oh man. Haze and Lair. Although I didn't think they were the worst games ever, I just wasn't feeling them at all and the shoddy flying controls in Lair killed it for me. Haze in my opinion may have done somewhat better if it wasn't hyped over the moon so much before it came out. I also have played and own all of the games the posters here mention and I can say I absolutely loved all the Killzone games, including three. Played the hell out of it, online as well. And I'll forever be saddened that Resistance 3 is the last one. I loved the series. Maybe someday the Chimera will return for revenge.

I deffo miss the flops - I used to rely on them to whittle down my 'list of games that sounded cool and I was interested in playing' to 'list of games I had the actual money and time to play'. Now that almost every game that I'm interested in turns out good (and at least solid), I find the games I'm not getting around to are _far_ better than they used to be (eg, I probably won't get around to Vanquish and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, and both reviewed really well and I thought the demos were great, but there's only so much time/money). It's great for consumers, but it means that a lot more quality projects aren't necessarily getting the customers they deserve.

Yep, these days there's just not gaming doldrums. it's always one awesome game after the next. So much so it seems gamers have become so picky that even a score in the 8 range is a disappointment. And even if game releases get slower, like in the summer, gamers probably have a back log a mile long.Last edited by Temjin001 on 8/18/2012 5:24:35 PM

lol, yeah, I think it's just the state the industry is going through, but up until about three-quarters of the way through last gen, and for the first few years of this gen, you could literally play all the good games, at least on one platform. Now I'm not sure I could even if I did it full-time, let alone as a hobby! I think we'll all have to adjust to things a bit like book readers must have adjusted when the printing press lead to much greater production and distribution of books, way back when. It's deffo a good problem to have :).